Author
Topic: Am I a putz or a whack-job? (Read 2831 times)

I have been into rock/hard rock/metal/extreme metal since roughly 1974-ish but in the '80's I got exposed to jazz (experimental - jean luc ponty, stanley clarke/etc....) and it tickles my fucking fancy with some of them. BUT that is also when I got into *electronic* music a-la Tangerine Dream. I got wicked into Jean Luc Ponty in that time-frame and I know he did a stint with Zappa in the '70's as well. BUT his Cosmic Messenger was so f-n impacting/impressive it STILL blows me away to this day. Am I am retro-dick? I LOVE that album and I think the one after. Same goes for Tangerine Dream, I loved them for their 80's sound till roughly mid 90's because it became commercial IMHO. I know they have a ton of movie stuff along with their regular releases but they went too *happy* IMHO* compared to Green Desert and beyond (esp. in mid 90's IMHO). I loved their stuff and would have paid a good price to see them live back in the early 90's but then changed direction like JLP did. I also was into KennyG back in the day (his first big release, after that = nty). Also was into Clarke/Duke project but that's another ball of wax.

Anyways, being 50+ now and still into the old stuff and extreme metal (I LOVE this shit! death/black/doom), am I a cog in the wheel, or a regular joe still moving forward with life BUT still digging current/old shit? I feel old now! HAHAHAH

Being that I could print a very close story to you own (just replace Jean Luc Ponty and Frank Zappa with Robert Fripp and Brian Eno) as well as opinions about currently loving total hardcore heavy metal, I wouldn't say you are a wack job or a putz. I'd say you are quite normal.

Nope you are more normal than you think! Well normal for a music fan...maybe not so much the average joe...

When I first started getting into and making ambient music back in the early/mid 1990's whenever I met and collaborated with many of my peers of a roughly similar age (IE went to high school in the 80's) and the discussion of likes and influences came up, most of them jumped right to Depeche Mode, Thomas Dolby, Duran Duran, Kraftwerk, and the like.

I used to feel really out of place, as my influences started young with the Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin and by High School I was a total metal head starting with Maiden, Sabbath, Ozzy, Priest and then moving into Slayer, Metallica, Queensryche, Voi Vod and from there it was punk rock like 7-Seconds, Circle Jerks, DOA, Die Kruezen, Agent Orange, Naked Raygun and so on...and by the time I finished college I was back to classic rock as well as 70's jazz fusion which led to traditional jazz.

I actually by-passed most "synth bands" and did not come to appreciate them until about the last decade if I am honest. Yet I still liked and made what we call ambient or electronic music. I think that may be why though for me, the ambient and electronic music I like best to this day has a very collaborative, live played, improvised human element to it, vs many of my friends who are more into programmed, ableton loop based or generative modular type stuff. In the end I see it as two sides of the same coin and even fun to merge the two.

I also think the original post highlights the position of a true music lover, vs a person who loves and lives for just a certain genre be it metal or ambient or polka. For me one is all inclusive and expansive, while the other can become an eventual treadmill of sameness, for me anyway.

PV

Logged

"I liken good ambient to good poetry ... enjoyable, often powerful, and usually unpopular" APK